10 $\mu$m interferometry of disks around young stars

TL;DR

This paper reviews 10 μm interferometric observations of circumstellar disks around young stars, revealing detailed disk structures and dust properties, including radial variations in grain size and crystallinity, across different evolutionary stages.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of MIDI interferometry results, confirming and refining disk structure models and highlighting dust property variations within disks.

Findings

Disk structures largely confirm SED-based models.

Dust near the star has larger grains and higher crystallinity.

Radial dependence of dust properties is significant.

Abstract

This contribution reviews results from interferometric observations of circumstellar disks around young stars of $\lesssim$3 M$_{\odot}$, performed with the MIDI instrument operating in the 10 $\mu$m spectral region. Two main topics, the disk structure on $\sim$1-10 AU scales and the dust properties in the same region, are illustrated with several examples of MIDI studies, covering various evolutionary stages. The spatially resolved observations largely confirm SED-only based hypotheses on disk structure, yet also reveal degeneracies that may occur in such SED modeling. The properties of the dust on the disk surface show a strong radial dependence: the dust close to the central star has generally larger grain sizes and in particular a much higher crystallinity than the dust in more remote disk regions.